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Do your dogs do things that make you wonder why or how they learned the behavior? My guys do two things that I can't figure out.
If the dogs see something outside and start barking they'll both stop when I say "it's okay", but if I don't say that, Harley will run from the window over to me, hit my hand or jump on me, run back to the window and bark again...and he'll keep doing this until I tell him it's okay. Annie just stays at the window and barks.
It's almost like he's coming to me expecting the "it's okay" words and when he doesn't get them he goes back to barking. Would that make sense? He's not a nervous or reactive dog, he's actually really solid.
The other thing is Annie is alerting us to things. (not sure of the right word) This is a gross example but she'll come into my office and just stare at me and whine until I get up and follow her, and sure enough, the cat has thrown up in the family room. She'll do this if Harley has his nose in the garbage pail, if the cat is on the table etc. It's like she knows exactly how things are supposed to be and when they aren't that way, she comes and tells me.
I keep thinking there's something really cool I could do with this, but I didn't train it, she just does it. She's the kind of dog who's going to wake us up in the middle of the night if there's a fire. (I hope)..I just don't know why she started doing it. Do your dogs do this?
If the dogs see something outside and start barking they'll both stop when I say "it's okay", but if I don't say that, Harley will run from the window over to me, hit my hand or jump on me, run back to the window and bark again...and he'll keep doing this until I tell him it's okay. Annie just stays at the window and barks.
It's almost like he's coming to me expecting the "it's okay" words and when he doesn't get them he goes back to barking. Would that make sense? He's not a nervous or reactive dog, he's actually really solid.
The other thing is Annie is alerting us to things. (not sure of the right word) This is a gross example but she'll come into my office and just stare at me and whine until I get up and follow her, and sure enough, the cat has thrown up in the family room. She'll do this if Harley has his nose in the garbage pail, if the cat is on the table etc. It's like she knows exactly how things are supposed to be and when they aren't that way, she comes and tells me.
I keep thinking there's something really cool I could do with this, but I didn't train it, she just does it. She's the kind of dog who's going to wake us up in the middle of the night if there's a fire. (I hope)..I just don't know why she started doing it. Do your dogs do this?
Maybe they are worried about their friend too -I know when the kids are sick my GSD is a whiney pacing mess if I try to close their doors. She HAS to be right there monitoring the situation and wants to stay right with them like she knows they are off. My son had his tonsils out last week and it got so bad with her my DH and mom had to feed her in his room because she would not come down to eat or potty. She wouldn't come when they called her to go outside for walks or potty breaks so they had to leash her and drag her out just to do her business. She even tried to go after my mom when she visited to check on him. He was asleep with Zoe in his bed and when she opened the door Zoe immediately lunged at her barking and blocked the door.
